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The 49ers’ Randy Moss catches a touchdown pass between teammate Delanie Walker and the Patriots’ Devin McCourty in the first quarter.

The Journal provides minute-by-minute analysis as the San Francisco 49ers beat the New England Patriots 41-34 in a wild meeting of two of the NFL’s top teams. The Daily Fix’s Jeremy Gordon offers commentary on the game and the NBC telecast.

The first thing you’ll notice when the San Francisco 49ers and New England Patriots take the field are the uniforms. It’s always nice when the NFL’s best teams also have their best colors, and the aesthetic value of watching red-and-gold clash with blue-and-silver can’t be undervalued. It helps, too, that we might be watching a potential Super Bowl preview, which could’ve happened last season had it not been for Eli Manning and his meddling ways. This time, the Colin Kaepernick-boosted 49ers continue to speed along on the strength of their defense, while the Patriots continue their absurd scoring rate en route to looking, one again, like the league’s most dangerous team.

Color vs. color; Jim Harbaugh vs. Bill Belichick; offense vs. defense; AFC vs. NFC; the veteran Tom Brady vs. the upstart Kaepernick; the New England O-line vs. a record-chasing San Francisco D-line; there’s a lot to chew on, and with both teams chasing a first-round bye, anything less than a rightful showdown would be a surprise. I’ll try to avoid harping on the Super Bowl angle too much, but forgive me if I can’t help myself.

Bit of a hangup, folks — NBC’s telecast is showing the entirety of the President’s speech, and my cable package isn’t advanced enough to get the channels rerouting the game. But the Internet tells me that the 49ers just scored, on what I imagine was a fairly awesome Kaepernick-to-Moss hookup.

Still on Internet-only updating, which feels like the type of distant thought exercise some art-school grad student could write about. Stuck after a long completion by Lloyd, the Patriots apparently punt to the 49ers, who take it at their own 8.

NBC provides a nice little video package to sum up the action not seen during the president’s speech, showing that Brady made a tackle to prevent a Niners touchdown after being intercepted. Good to know!

Rather, SF goes for it on fourth and inches but is foiled when Kaepernick fumbles the snap — again — and falls down immediately. Big break for NE, which incidentally prevents what should’ve been another easy-but-avoided SF score.

Ginn appears to wag his finger at the crowd, which he is nowhere near accomplished enough to do. Belichick whips out his challenge flag in protest of giving the ball back to SF, saying that the recovery was legal.

Potentially damaging offensive pass-interference on Moss pushes SF out of the red zone, but Kaepernick scrambles to get within the 10 with 8 seconds left. Alfonzo Dennard, rookie Patriots cornerback, is down on the play.

Building on that: It’s definitely been a treacherous, sloppy affair thus far, with New England turning the ball over a few times and allowing Kaepernick to make the big plays when he needs them most. Journal editor Dan Bollerman points out that it feels like a college game, no doubt because of the effect the rain is having on everyone’s ability to hold onto the ball. The 49ers have also done a nice job of bottling up the Patriots run game, forcing Brady to throw the ball in these conditions — which, as the 0-fer rate on third down conversions shows, he’s not having a lot of luck doing.

Yeeeeeeeep, here’s how the game is going: A broken-up pass floats in the air for a second, landing right in Aldon Smith’s hands for a chance interception that gives the ball right back to San Francisco in Patriots territory.

On the next play, Kaepernick goes deep to Crabtree for another touchdown, this one of 27 yards . Sorry guys, but the rest of this thing is going on autopilot. (Just kidding, dear editor.) (You better be! — Ed.)

Patriots get into San Francisco territory, but are immediately stymied when Aldon Smith unhinges his jaw and swallows Brady whole. No, it looks like Lloyd catches a long touchdown but it’s called back on a penalty.

New England continues to drive and gets to the 5-yard line off another pugnacious Woodhead gain, which he follows with another run for the touchdown. Whoever bet on him being New England’s most effective player on offense may now collect his $50 trillion winnings.

Strange, but it doesn’t feel like New England is getting dominated despite the score; they’ve just had a lot of bad luck due to the conditions. (Which could say something in and of itself — paging any stat hound to crunch the numbers!) Don’t exactly see them coming back because there’s only so much time, but it might not be anything to despair over.

San Francisco’s Justin Smith, one of the best defensive linemen in the game, went back to the locker room with an apparent injury. That gives the Patriots a hole to have Brady try and sneak the ball in on fourth down for the touchdown, which he does.

No call on an either-way pass interference bump, and Brady is frustrated on the next play when SF calls a timeout right before his snap. The following play might prove some good data on whether rage is a helpful conduit for NFL success.

New England spends its final two timeouts, leading us to the edge of the two-minute warning. If they can hold the Niners on third down, they might have a chance, even if SF kicks a lead-cushioning field goal. If SF converts, then it’s all over.

Akers kicks a short field goal, which should be enough to end it as New England needs to score twice in two minutes with no timeouts. Not saying some Madden-inspired playcalling couldn’t get it done, but it’s probably a long shot.

Another fourth-down attempt goes through, and New England spikes the ball so it can try a gap-closing field goal and still have time left for the onside + drive + touchdown. Tall order, but maybe possible?

Nearly four hours and 94 caffeine-driven updates later, this emotional roller-coaster of a game slows to a stop as the 49ers ultimately hold off a torrid New England comeback to close out a win that didn’t seem like it would’ve been in contention by the end. It’s not a lot, but the Pyrrhic victory should reassure Patriots fans — it’s a bummer to lose, but wonderfully impressive that they made a real go of it after falling behind so quickly. Colin Kaepernick’s big game ability was proven up, then down, then up again; Tom Brady remains as capable as ever of galvanizing his troops; above all, we definitely saw some nice proof that this would make for a great Super Bowl matchup should each team make it through the playoffs to the bigger stage. Thanks for reading, everyone.

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